


Explain Me Science

by magic_and_hijinx



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Hypnosis, M/M, bad and probably factually incorrect explanation of string theory, half-assed attempt at a confusion induction, hypnotist!brian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 19:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5979193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magic_and_hijinx/pseuds/magic_and_hijinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arin has a day off with nothing to do, which is a health and safety risk to everyone involved. Brian might have the solution if he can just get him to sit still and listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Explain Me Science

**Author's Note:**

> I literally researched string theory for this pile of trash.  
> Never say I didn't do anything for you guys.
> 
> -Ash

It wasn’t that Arin didn’t appreciate days off; it was just his brain, stuck perpetually in motion, that had a quarrel with it.  
On this particular day off, the Grump house was almost completely empty. Everyone had somewhere to be and something to do, and even though Arin appreciated the breather he’d much rather be with them.  
By the early afternoon, he’d been reduced to trying his hand at the drums on the living room table. His fingers weren’t the best drumsticks in the world, but if he hit the wooden surface fast enough they got some weird sounds out of it.  
Brian sat at the smaller table over by the window, the room fading around the corners of his worksheet. A full squared A4 page of neatly scribed working bled up from underneath the one he was writing on. One of the best parts of physics was feeling the equation just fall into place on front of him; this one didn’t seem to want to budge. Any time it showed signs of letting up, it was promptly knocked back into place by an annoying, solid noise that sounded a little like an angry hammer beating the shit out of a tree.  
He slowly raised his head from the worksheet. Slipping the temples of his reading glasses over his ears, he folded them down on the table and glanced over at Arin.  
“Arin, don’t you have anything better to be doing right now?”  
Arin’s incessant drumming slowed down into a steady rhythm. “ _No_. That’s the problem.”  
Brian let out a heavy breath. “Don’t you have, like, hobbies?”  
“Work _is_ my hobby, Brian.”  
Brian spun around in his office chair. “Wow. That’s kind of sad.”  
“Isn’t it?” Arin jerked his head towards Brian, letting his hands slap down against his lap.  
“Oh, buddy. I would help but I doubt you’d be very interested in physics research.”  
“Who said that? Definitely not me!” Arin leapt up from his chair and half-stumbled towards the other table. “Let me see what you got.”  
Brian chuckled, pushing the chair back under the table with his feet. He rested his elbows on the table top. “I know I’m probably just perpetuating the joke here, but this is postdoctoral level stuff and-“  
“Oh, budge over and let me see.” Arin perched his chin on Brian’s shoulder and angled his head towards the sheet of paper. He scanned over the black ink, written in block capitals. A bombardment of numbers, letters and symbols screamed at him from the table. It might as well have been another unpronounceable language, like hieroglyphics. He stared at it for a good few moments, as if the mesh of text would make more sense the longer it was observed.  
“You can’t understand a word, can you?” Brian did shamefully little to hide a sly, lop-sided grin.  
“Just give me a moment. God.” Another little while of staring passed. “…Nope.”  
Brian chuckled and swiped the page to the other side of him, away from Arin’s nearly watering eyes. “Told you so.”  
Arin groaned. “Fine then. Teach me. Explain me science, physics dude.”  
Brian scoffed light-heartedly. “ _Explain you science_?”  
“Yeah! Mr. Smarty, Professor pants…” His words trailed off into incoherent grumbles.  
Brian paused for a bit, his gaze arbitrarily caught on the top of the page. Something had to be done with Arin; Brian had been around him when he was bored before, and a full day of it was a serious fire risk. He had an idea, but Arin’s seemingly limitless supply of energy would have to be dealt with first.  
“Fine, then.” Brian’s chair screeched against the laminate flooring as he stood up. He scooped the sheets of working into his hands. “But you have to sit down for this. And for the love of God, sit still.”  
Putting the sheets of working into one hand, he pulled out the chair next to him with the other and patted the red cushion three times.  
“Whatever you say, Professor Wecht.” Arin waved his arms mockingly as he sat down.  
Brian’s grin fell on one side. “And don’t be giving me any of that sass.” Arin just rolled his eyes in response, biting back an already-too-obvious smile.  
“Okay, so basically when we think of electrons, protons and neutrons we think of singular atoms with no ability to move, interact or influence its surroundings, right?” Brian’s voice softened until it became barely more than a deep, gruff whisper.  
“…Sure.” Arin’s gaze had managed to fix itself right on Brian’s eyes. His trademark icy, penetrating stare resisted any attempt to relocate to his nose or his cheek; they were in a staring match that Arin definitely hadn’t agreed on. But Arin wasn’t complaining- if there was one thing he’d noticed about Brian, it was that talking about physics always made little lights bounce around in his eyes. They were entertaining to follow, especially when he got to a pronounced point.  
“But what if the atoms aren’t actually just static, singular points, but took more of a string formation that we only observe as solid points from a distance?”  
“Oh- that’s string theory, isn’t it?” Now that Arin had a moment to notice it, the blue of Brian’s eyes had become so much clearer. Arin followed every little marking and discolouration around his irises. He assumed Brian had moved closer, but to check that he’d have to take his eyes off Brian’s and that meant effort. Just sitting there, listening to the old man rant about physics whilst the lights went wild against the blue sounded like a much better idea.  
“Exactly! And the thing with string theory is that its amplitudes always vanish at large complex momenta- well, in an appropriate kinematic regime, at least.”  
“Wait, but-“  
“And, obviously, that tells us that string amplitudes don’t have a pole when they’re at infinity, so they must obey a version of the BCFW recursion relations.”  
“BCFW wh-“  
Before Arin could finish his thought, more words were thrown at him without explanation. There was bound to be something in there, something that he wasn’t getting- something that made all of it make obvious sense. But every twelve-letter word that he tried to get his head around clogged up his brain a little more, sending spurts of fog spiralling across his thoughts. Words like ‘nongeometric’ and ‘orbifolds’ just served to further dull the mind-chatter. The incessant, hushed mutterings about how he should be working and how there was bound to be something he was forgetting to do that would ruin everything- one by one, they slowly faded into the background. After he stopped trying to figure out what they all meant, Arin was struck by how melodic and satisfying those twelve-letter words were when Brian said them. By now, he was already six-feet-deep in what Arin assumed was his lecturing mode. His words were rhythmic, purposeful, well-pronounced. As more and more of Arin’s thoughts faded out of existence for the time being, he couldn’t exactly stop himself from sinking down into the chair and letting his head fill with white fluff.  
“…And it might be that you’re not really catching what I’m saying by this point. Maybe you’re just noticing the tone…inflexion…hearing the syllables without much care as to what they mean. If that’s happening, you can just let go of any last queries…and just let your thoughts melt into the sound of my voice. You don’t have to worry about consciously understanding or even hearing the words I say…because your subconscious will be there to take in the important stuff. So if you’d like…you can just slowly close your eyes over now, whenever and however it feels most natural.”  
Arin’s eyes gently fluttered, a drip of water spilling out over his eyelid for staring so long. As his lids closed over, his head slowly began to drift over to the side. Brian reached out a hand and carefully pressed it against Arin’s cheek before he flopped out of the chair.  
“Arin, can you hear me?”  
Arin grunted in confirmation.  
“Good boy. You’re doing so well. Now…I’m going to teach you a few things, but if you’d prefer to just drift and spiral into your own little world there, you don’t have to consciously listen to me. If you want, you can do what you were doing before and just let the tone of my voice help you to sink down. Your subconscious will register everything you need to know. Do you understand?”  
Arin grunted again.  
“Good. Okay, so Arin…when you wake up out of this trance, all thoughts of work and business will be gone from your mind for the day. You can pick them up again tomorrow no problem; but for today, the only thing you need to do is _relax_. Watch TV, play video games, go for a walk- take a really long bubble bath, maybe. Whatever will make you feel the most comfortable on your day off. You’ll be able to enjoy yourself without worrying about not being productive- because taking care of yourself is probably the most important job you have right now. Does that all make sense?”  
Arin let out a soft groan that could’ve been purely out of relaxation or deeply sexual. Brian could never really tell. Either way, it sounded positive.  
“Alright. So now you have a choice; if you’d prefer it, you can wake up from this trance with full memory of everything that’s happened, though the suggestions will still have their effect.” Brian glanced lazily around him. “There’s not much in the immediate vicinity that you can hit me with, so we should be good there. But if it’s easier for you, you can completely forget this trance and everything that’s happened in it; you’ll just remember taking a much-needed nap on the chair whilst I was ranting my ass off about things you don’t really care about. Is that okay?”  
Arin nodded.  
“Okay, good. And now, on the count of three, you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, energetic and completely focused on self-care for today. Again, you’ll remember as much or as little as you want to. Three…two… _one_.”  
Arin glanced upwards as his eyelids slowly started to lift. A dull but energising buzz flowed through his decluttered head. Brian took a step back.  
“Hi, there.” Brian grinned.  
Arin’s eyes darted from side to side. “Shit, how long was I asleep?”  
Brian shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t time your catnaps.” He sidestepped the chair, still carrying the stack of A4 squared paper. “I’m gonna take this up to my office. You do…whatever, I guess.” He disappeared through the open living room door.  
Arin stared at the wall in front of him for a few moments as his disorientated mind got its grip back on his surroundings. _What a douche._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, feel free to come say hi at [my tumblr](http://magic-and-hijinks.tumblr.com/). Every once in a while I'll post little drabbles that are too short to be full fics so if you're feelin' and don't wanna miss out, there's that I guess.


End file.
